It's been three years since Jonathan Holmes squealed over C-Wars, "a post-apocalyptic ARPG + RTS + OMG." And it's not even out yet. Take that, Kickstarter backers! On the other hand, the game does exist in a playable state, so there are more egregious crowd-funded campaigns yet. I remember some asshole once got $1,500 to go to Japan and write a few funny blog posts and he never did. The end goal was literally a vacation and he couldn't deliver.

C-Wars has been on Steam in Early Access for about half a year -- it's even 25% off right now -- but I caught it last week during the Game Developers Conference and spent a week trying to come up with any take more scalding than, "C'mon, guys, 'C-Wars' is a bad title for anything other than vaginal warfare."

The real-time take on pixellated tile tactics was hard to grasp in quick demo form, especially one scaled for "fun" rather than against a typical learning curve. So for my failings (back to start, do not pass go, this is Rogue-like) with the standard character knifing and shooting zombos (on the moon, a scourge let loose by way of evil mega corps, a cyberpunk staple), I then switched characters to the man in the mech -- my favorite Michael Jackson song -- with the huge sword that hit for mad tiles of damage.

I still like the art, but C-Wars is a far cry from how its concept debut three years ago. That's not inherently bad, even if its original form was more reminiscent for Mega Man's Battle Network sub-series, which is good. For the first few games, at least.